TRAV­EL­LING WITH A NEW­BORN TIPS TO MAKE IT THROUGH

Whether it’s to meet a granny, or just to take a san­i­tysav­ing break, some­times trav­el­ling with a small baby has to hap­pen. We know you’re al­ready stressed out by the job of keep­ing a baby alive while oc­ca­sion­ally get­ting an hour of sleep, and it would be a pity to add even more anx­i­ety into the mix.

1. Cul­ti­vate ac­cep­tance

Your best-laid plans of book­ing the flight to co­in­cide with baby’s sleep time WILL go awry when the air­line tells you there is a two-hour de­lay. There will be tears – and baby will cry, too! (Ha, ha.) If you can see the get­ting-there part of the jour­ney as al­most like a cir­cle of hell you have to pass through be­fore your par­a­disi­a­cal re­ward, you’ll go into grit-your-teeth sur­vival mode, and you’ll cope, be­cause you have to. Try not to take other pas­sen­gers’ nas­ti­ness and eye­rolling per­son­ally. Those grumpy peo­ple have for­got­ten that they, too, were ba­bies once. And your baby has as much of a right to ex­ist as they do.

2. Take a dummy

Ba­bies’ ears hurt on flights (due to the pres­sure change) and they can be­come in­con­solable. Let­ting them suck a dummy or breast­feed can help.

3. Pack a take-on travel bag

And don’t even bother to stash it in the over­head com­part­ment. Essen­tials: baby wipes, bot­tles, snacks, nap­pies, plas­tic nappy bags, bibs, toys, and Rescue Rem­edy for mom and dad.

4. Take it slow

If you’re driving, sched­ule in fre­quent stops and ac­cept you won’t get to Durbs in your usual six hours. That’s a long time for a baby to be in a car seat – and she MUST be in a car seat when­ever the car is in mo­tion, that’s not ne­go­tiable. She’ll need breaks, and so will you. The up­side is many ba­bies are lulled to sleep by a long car drive so you could get a nice, long stretch of driving in while baby is out for the count.